WEBVTT - Short Stuff: Teresita Basa 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:06.800 Hey, you're welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck, 0:00:06.840 --> 0:00:11.960 there's Still and of course this short stuff short stuff now, 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:15.320 So Jos, I should have a question for you. I 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:18.840 know that every time we go to Chicago, you're always like, 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:23.480 this is the creepiest place I've ever been. It feels haunted. 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:31.560 Forget New Orleans, right, forget other creepy places. This Chicago 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:36.360 is the scariest place on earth. I do say that. 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:39.680 And you know what, after listening to this story, you 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:44.400 might be right. Yeah, yeah, um, it is a surprising town. 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:47.159 Like that's kind of where the Dunes murders started, That's 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:50.479 where the Thailand all murders were. I think I just 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:53.720 realized this is the third one. Huh yeah, at the 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:57.480 very least, at the very least. Um and in fact, 0:00:57.720 --> 0:01:02.720 part of this um this episode takes place in Edgewater Hospital, which, um, 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:06.800 look up abandoned Edgewater Hospital. There's like fifty pictures of 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:11.399 this one maybe abandoned hospital. Oh my gosh, and um, 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:13.120 I think it was abandoned maybe in the nineties. Is 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:17.800 like this this empty abandoned hospital in a high rise. 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:20.920 But it's where Hillary Clinton was born and where John 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:27.080 Wayne Gacy was born. Really. Yeah, but by thet I 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:29.160 don't know. I don't. I didn't go to the trouble 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:31.160 of checking out their ages to see how far apart 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:33.600 they were. But wouldn't that be weird? Has a right 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:37.800 linked them together? Eventually? If not, they will. Now we 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:40.840 just gave him a little a little piece of little shred. No, 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:44.080 but we'll look into it. So. Um, at this Edgewater 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:47.720 hospital there was a woman named Tarasee to Bassa who 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:50.960 worked there, and she was forty seven. She was Filipino, 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:54.360 and apparently she was a well to do Filipino aristocrat 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:58.120 ex pat who lived in America and worked as a 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:03.640 respiratory therapist nurse in at Edgewater Hospital. Uh. And she 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:06.840 lived in Chicago, in Chicago proper, not in the suburbs. 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:12.680 And one day she is discovered in her apartment under 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:15.919 a smoldering pile of clothing, naked with a kitchen knife 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:19.000 sticking out of her chest. She had been murdered. I 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:21.760 think the fire department founder and they were really surprised 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:24.440 with what they found. Yeah, it was a pretty routine 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:29.679 call for them of an apartment fire on February two 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:34.880 and under like you said, under the under a mattress, 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:38.600 a clear murder because of that kitchen knife sticking out 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:41.640 of her chest, and that would have been an accident. Sure, 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:44.399 you stab yourself in the chest and then set your 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:47.160 clothing on fire under a mattress, that, yeah, it would 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:51.040 have been of an accident. Right, So this is unfortunately 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:54.760 it just goes unsolved. There's like six months in These 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:57.560 detectives who are working in the case, they try out 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:00.680 every lead, they start doing some investigating, they find, you know, 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:04.200 maybe there were people who wanted are dead. Nobody had 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:07.400 the right motive or opportunity. There was no good suspect 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:10.400 and they reached a total dead end within six months. 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:15.400 That's right. So, Uh. Detective Joe Statuela of homicide came 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:18.120 in one day about six months later, I saw a 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:21.079 note on his desk that said called the Evanston Police 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:24.840 Department about the Terra Seda boss A case. He called 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:28.080 Evanston and they said, hey, you need to call Dr. 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:32.440 Jose Chiwa in Skokie. And he said, couldn't they have 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:34.800 just put that on the note Let save me a 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:37.240 phone call, And they said, we wanted you to know 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:42.400 it came from US so Skokie, Illinois. Uh, which always 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:46.400 reminds me of usual suspects. Oh, definitely does it to 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:50.960 you too, barbershop quartet, that's right, Sco Illinois. Um. They 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:55.720 went to see Dr Joe Jose we call him Joe Chua, 0:03:57.240 --> 0:03:59.960 who was also a Filipino, as we'll see, and they 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:03.400 interviewed him and he said, a weird thing has happened here. 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:06.880 My wife, she's thirty eight years old. She has gone 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:14.720 into trances three different times, saying in Tagalog that she 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:19.960 is tarasee to bassa and she needs help solving her murder. 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:24.120 And here's who did it, right, which is very very 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:28.359 weird and and kind of something that you would probably ignore, 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:31.440 especially if you got a call from somebody saying, yeah, 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:33.160 my wife went into trance and said that she's a 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:37.000 murder victim. But there were two things going on here. One, 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:40.680 Statuta and his partner had reached the total dead end 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:43.640 in this case, and really any lead was was worth 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:48.000 pursuing at this point, right. And then two, not only 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:54.120 had them the doctor's wife, um, what is it rema 0:04:54.120 --> 0:05:02.719 bossa no rembias remibius chewa uh doctor Jose to his wife, 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:05.280 not only had she said that she was this murder 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:09.320 victim she named the murderer, and she also said that 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:13.320 the murderer had been in Terra Seda's apartment and had 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:16.320 stolen things from it, and that some of that stolen 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:20.800 goods were jewelry that he had given to his girlfriend. 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:24.760 So the fact that like this voice from the grave 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:27.839 was saying that she was a murder victim and also 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:30.599 saying who did it and what they did with the jewelry, 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:33.719 that was enough, apparently to convince the detectives to follow 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:37.040 upon it. And not only that, before we take our 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:41.680 little break, she gave names of people who could identify 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:47.200 this jewelry and telephone numbers of those people, which is 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:52.520 pretty nuts. Yeah, Ron, Samara kin Bossa, Richard past and 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:56.480 Ray Kings and that's not even the murderer. So that's 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:58.640 a pretty good setup. I think we'll take a break 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:03.320 and we'll tell you what happened after this. As s 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:29.200 k as all right, So she says in these trances 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:34.679 antagalog that she is this murdered woman, Teresa Teresa to Bassa, 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:36.960 h huh. This guy broke into my house who works 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:40.880 at my hospital as a respiratory technician. He comes into 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:45.320 ostensibly fix a television murders me steals my jewelry that 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:48.599 was given to me uh in France as a gift 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:53.960 from my father two my mom. He stole the stuff. 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:56.279 Here's the people that can verify it. Here their phone numbers. 0:06:56.720 --> 0:07:01.679 They decide to investigate, and it checks out. It checks out. 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:05.880 That's the crazy thing. The detectives start looking into this 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:08.960 and they're like, there is this man named Alan Showery 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:11.960 and he did work with Tarasee to Bassa, so let's 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:15.040 go visit him. And they went to because she named him. 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:18.160 We've come out across right right. She said Alan Showery 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:21.080 killed me. That this woman in the trance said this 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:24.880 man Alan Showery was my murderer. So the detective and 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:27.320 she gave enough information. The detectives followed up on it. 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:31.640 They went to visit Allan Showery and they um, they said, hey, 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:34.200 will you come down to the station with us, and 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:37.560 he went with them voluntarily, which is very important, as 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:41.080 we'll see in a minute. And they started interviewing him 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:44.240 about Tarasee to Bassa's murder. Apparently they read him as rights. 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:47.160 They did everything by the book. Uh, they didn't arrest 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:49.880 him or anything like that. But he started answering questions 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:53.239 down at the station, and the more questions he answered, 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:55.920 the more they started to suspect that he was lying 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:58.320 because they were actually catching him in lies and contradictions 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:02.120 and things like that. And eventually he admitted to having 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:04.760 gone to her apartment to help her fix the TV, 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:08.120 but that she had called and canceled before he got there, 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:11.120 so he went home instead. Well, the second thing they 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:13.920 did was they went to his apartment and talked to 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:16.800 his girlfriend and said, hey, has your boyfriend given you 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:20.480 any jewelry recently? She said, well, yeah, he gave me 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:23.120 this pendant in this ring is a late Christmas present, 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:26.240 and um, I love them, don't they just look divine? 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:30.000 The late Christmas present? And the detectives say, well, yes, 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:33.000 that does look very nice, but can we see these 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:34.840 things or take pictures of them? And if they took 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:39.319 him from her, um, and they had Taraceta boss's relatives 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:42.520 that had been named apparently by raymie Chewa to come 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:46.040 down and look at these, um this jewelry and say 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:48.960 yeah or nay whether it was taracetas and they said yea, 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:54.440 this is remarkable. So this is all plowing ahead. Uh. 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:59.679 He is arrested and charged. There is a trial hearing here. 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:05.800 Hold on, he confessed, so he confessed, So they have 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:09.600 a trial hearing on emotion from the assistant public defender, 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:13.000 William Swanno, and he says, you know what, there's no 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:16.720 probable calls here. They got a call about a trance 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:21.040 that I think this woman faked, and that arrest was 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:25.160 illegal to begin with because they liked probable calls. And 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:28.080 never to my knowledge quote, never to my knowledge has 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:31.520 a man been arrested because of a supernatural vision. Police 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:34.320 have never been informed of a criminals name by a 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:38.760 voice from the grave. And the judge went, except until now, 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:43.240 because that's exactly what happened, dude. Yeah, the judge upheld 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:45.760 it in this hearing to throw out the entire arrest 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:50.320 because again, Chuck like, we're regardless of whether this trance 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:53.880 was taraset to Bassa possessing Ramy Chewa, regardless of what 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:57.680 you think of that. In the Annals of American Justice, 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:01.960 there is a case where a man was arrested because 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:06.320 of strictly because of a tip that detectives received from 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:10.920 a woman claiming to have been possessed by the murder victim. 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:13.880 That happened, Yeah, and the judge said, I see no 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:17.720 reason to restrict the investigatory power of the police, whether 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:20.080 they believe the voices are not. They had to check 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:22.640 it out. And that was sort of the party line, 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:25.200 which is like, hey man, it doesn't matter if a 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:28.800 dog came out and pete out a name on the street, 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:32.560 Like they went to this guy's house and he did 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:36.240 it right, so like who cares? That was basically the 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:39.520 whole the whole thing, Like they because the police followed 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:42.880 proper procedure, because they advised him of his rights, because 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:47.400 Alan Showery went with them voluntarily and answered their questions voluntarily, 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:50.120 and the fact that he confessed, like all of this, 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:52.800 it doesn't matter as far as the law is concerned 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:57.760 whether Taraseea Bassa possessed Rami Chu or not. They they 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:00.120 followed procedure, and they followed up on this tip. And 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:05.960 so there's a trial. And during the trial, um Alan Showery, 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:08.040 it looked like he might get off. There was a 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:11.960 mistrial in fact, but then he surprised everybody. While he 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:15.920 was awaiting a new trial, he played guilty and didn't 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:18.920 get a second trial and instead was given something like 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:22.120 fourteen years for the murder and then four years each 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:25.360 for robbery and arson. But he's still he only served 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:30.200 I think something like five which in and of itself 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:36.840 it is crazy. But he was caught strictly because of 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:41.280 that call from from Raimi Chiwa's husband, Dr Jose Chiwa. 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:43.720 And so now you have to go back and say 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:48.960 how much of this is true? And apparently everything we've 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:52.360 said is true and verified that there were reports done 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:54.880 on it. That thing about that hearing that was from 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:58.960 a Washington Post article we found from I believe this 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:01.400 is all true. That no one came out later and said, 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:04.120 you know, my wife's actually an amateur investigator, and she 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:05.720 thought it'd be kind of fun to solve this case 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:08.760 and then present it and wrap it in the enticing 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:14.200 book jacket of a trance right. What what the I think? 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:17.280 We found some guy in a story and from Chicago 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:20.520 wrote a post about it, and he kind of captured 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:23.400 what I what I suspect um. One thing that gets 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:26.280 left out very frequently is that Raimi Chiwa was a 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:31.199 co worker, uh kind of friend yeah, of Tara Sea 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:34.000 bassa Um went to a party at her apartment, so 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:37.480 knew where she lived and then also knew Alan Showery 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:41.320 was actually scared of Alan Showery. So this historian posits 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:45.200 that she was actually so afraid of coming forward, but 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:48.920 so overcome by the guilt of keeping this, this this 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:52.800 thought to herself. It just came out like that, And 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:56.040 that makes sense. It would it would be more culturally 0:12:56.080 --> 0:12:59.760 acceptable to do that than to, you know, just keep 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:02.400 it to herself. That that's where the trance came from. 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:06.360 That she somehow acquired all this knowledge. If that's the case, 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:08.920 that's still pretty interesting too. Yeah, she could have been 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:13.520 sleep walking and talking, sure, which appears like a trance. 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:17.240 But either way, it's all pretty remarkable. It is pretty remarkable. 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:21.119 One of the most remarkable cases in American law enforcement 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:25.080 and justice. And that's why we dedicated twelve minutes to it, 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:29.200 more than that man thirteen and a half baby. Uh, 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:32.439 that's it for this short stuff, right, That's right, Short 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:37.760 stuff Away. Stuff you Should Know is a production of 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:40.719 iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:43.760 heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:45.480 wherever you listen to your favorite shows.